ARMED WITH FAITH, QB STILL CAN DREAM

FALLBROOK ALUM DUTTON HAS NURTURED HIS LOVE OF THE GAME IN AFL

NEW ORLEANS - JULY 27: John Dutton of the Colorado Crush speaks after receiving an award during the ADT ArenaBall Awards Gala at The Sugar Mill on July 27, 2007 in New Orleans, Louisiana. ArenaBowl XXI will be played between the COlumbus Destroyers and the San Jose SaberCats on Sunday July 29. (Photo by Doug Benc/Getty Images for AFL) *** Local Caption *** John Dutton

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NEW ORLEANS - JULY 27: John Dutton of the Colorado Crush speaks after receiving an award during the ADT ArenaBall Awards Gala at The Sugar Mill on July 27, 2007 in New Orleans, Louisiana. ArenaBowl XXI will be played between the COlumbus Destroyers and the San Jose SaberCats on Sunday July 29. (Photo by Doug Benc/Getty Images for AFL) *** Local Caption *** John Dutton

CLEVELAND  On 50-yard football fields inside basketball arenas with lots of flashing lights and relatively few fans, an anonymously epic career continues.

John Dutton, at 36, plays a game for a “living” because he can.

And because it’s a pretty neat way to fill the time between helping save the world.

And because no one has told him to stop.

“I don’t have a plan,” Dutton said on the topic of how long he will continue to play. “Until someone doesn’t give me an opportunity.”

The opportunities have not stopped yet, though Dutton would be the first to acknowledge opportunity can be a relative term.

Dutton, a Fallbrook High alum, is the quarterback for the Cleveland Gladiators of the Arena Football League, and as long as he starts he makes $1,600 per game. For an 18-game season.

“You look at our W-2, you’d wonder, ‘How do you do it?’ ” Dutton said, laughing. “But I was more concerned with money when I was making more money. We don’t do excess … God provides everything we need.”

You can ask why this story is appearing in an NFL town, written less than two weeks before the NFL Draft.

The answer is that this kind of story needs to be told every once in a while in the midst of our screaming, angry, impatient sports psyche.

John Dutton is one of the guys who reminds you how great sport is. It’s not all fantasy stats and seven-figure salaries. A man can love passing, be good at it and also have a higher purpose. And our interest can be a simple matter of rooting for a guy to play forever, wherever.

The trek so far: After leaving the great burgh of Fallbrook, Dutton went to the University of Texas (nine passes, three completions, 38 yards) and the University of Nevada (6,276 yards and two Big West Offensive Player of the Year awards), the Miami Dolphins (drafted sixth round in 1998, waived in training camp), the Atlanta Falcons (waived during 1998 training camp) and the Cleveland Browns (waived after breaking foot the first week of 1999 camp).

He’s never taken an NFL regular-season snap, but he’s thrown for almost 40,000 yards and 650 touchdowns in the AFL, with a passer rating that tops 110.0 in 12 seasons.

Watching him play on Easter Sunday, it was clear he can throw — across his body, off his back foot, while being chased. He finds open receivers quickly in places that don’t look open. On a small field, with a three-man line, where teams combine for more than 100 points virtually every game, the quarterback is under constant pressure, and Dutton somehow slows that all down.

But a kid doesn’t grow up striving for AFL stardom. Dutton told a coach in San Jose more than a decade ago he wasn’t long for this league, that he was an NFL quarterback.

Shortly afterward, he was MVP of Arena Bowl XIX. He led the Colorado Crush to victory in Arena Bowl XVI in 2005. Dutton appeared on the first-ever EA Sports Arena Football video game in 2006. He made well over $100,000 six straight seasons (before the Arena league took a sabbatical and came back much more frugal). He was, for a time, occasionally referred to as the next Kurt Warner, cited as a plug-and-play QB who could make the move outdoors to help a team.

But his last NFL tryout was with the Denver Broncos in 2003.

The NFL dream faded.

“A while back,” Dutton said, with no apparent regret.

Still, the Duttons don’t rule anything out.

His wife called an agent recently, asking him to vet interest from NFL teams. Despite her consistent prayers that God would just show them that the NFL was out of the question, she believes that is not the answer she’s gotten.

“We’re not stupid,” Terina Dutton said. “We know he should be done ... We know how crazy this sounds.”

These are people possessing a faith without bounds but with feet on the ground.

“We’re fine with whatever,” she said. “We’re good wherever.”

With the Duttons, that is true as long as they believe God is guiding them to whatever and wherever.

And that’s a helpful philosophy in that John Dutton hardly makes enough to support a wife and four kids (fifth on the way).

Two of those children are 15-year-old Ethiopian boys, Miki and Solomon, adopted four years apart.

The Duttons went to Africa six years ago and have spent a portion of almost every year since on the continent, establishing a number of ministries focused primarily on helping women and children.

John is now working to start Athletes for the Nation, a foundation with the mission of taking professional athletes to Africa.

His pitch to other professional athletes: “The impact when someone steps foot in that country, you can’t help but be changed. Pay for your ticket and come with me. When we get back, we’ll see.”

A philosophy, essentially, by which Dutton lives.

Dutton doesn’t believe he is going to ever play in the NFL. Nor does he believe he won’t.

“I’m 36,” Dutton said. “C’mon.”

But that is followed almost immediately by, “God can do whatever ... There’s no chance. There hasn’t been a chance in eight years. But you can’t limit God. I’m fine with whatever God has for me.”